


Overthinking

by demonsorceress



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonsorceress/pseuds/demonsorceress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Skye becomes an agent, there's no place for satisfaction when her brain is filled with something else. Thankfully, Ward is quite a supportive S.O., and helps her in every possible way overcome some anxiety and concern that's disturbing her sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the result of my brain putting together five other small ideas that didn't work out as a single story. Also, I've been very obsessed with writing stories of Skye and Ward in the future, so this is set about a year and a half after the last episode.

Ward was quite surprised at what was expecting him when he walked into the makeshift gym where the team trained. Usually the place was empty in the morning, and he’d start laying down the mats while waiting for Skye to arrive; today, she was already there.

“Good morning,” he greeted her in a more cheerful tone than usual. It was a special day, after all. “So, does this mean you’ll be arriving earlier than me now that you’re an agent?”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” She smiled at him. However, she didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic as he’d imagined she would be. There was something else going on in her mind. Noticing the way he was staring at her, Skye explained in advance: “I just woke up early today and decided to start the day sooner instead of going back to bed.”

That was unusual coming from her, but he didn’t question the veracity of her statement. She had been in a weird mood lately and would probably just snap at him and tell him to mind his own business or something.

“Ready to start your first training session as an agent?”

He’d thought she’d have a sassy answer, something along the lines of “I was I was born ready” (she’d actually said that twice before). Instead, she glared at him suspiciously as if he was doubting her, and said, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be ready?”

“Alright then,” he replied, taken by surprise by her unexpectedly cagey behavior.

For the first time since the team had been put together, Ward wouldn’t _train_ Skye. They would train together. He wouldn’t give her a number of push-ups to do, or hold the punching bag for her and remind her of always keeping her hands up, he wouldn’t tell her what to do or not when they were “fighting”. That day, they went directly to the mats and begun fighting for real—as real as possible for a good training session.

After their year and a half of daily, intense training, Ward didn’t suspect Skye would have trouble with that at all. The problem was, in that specific day, she had.

Ward obviously wasn’t attacking her as hard as he would with someone with the same time of experience he had, but he definitely wasn’t taking it easy on her either. Skye fought back as hard as she could at the moment, but her skills weren’t nearly as sharp as he’d seen previously. Something was wrong. For some reason, though, he was sure pointing that out wouldn’t be a good idea.

He dropped her to the ground twice, and she got angrier in each one. For the first one, he ducked out of her blow to his face and kicked her feet out from under her, sending her on her back. She sighed and got back up promptly. In the second time, though, it took her a little bit more of motivation to get back to her feet after he brought her crashing to the mat.

When the third win happened, Ward knew that something was unquestionably wrong and it would be better to end that training session earlier than usual. He pinned her arms to the mat, and they were so close he could feel her deep, ragged breaths fanning across his face. He usually thought it was kind of funny when she was annoyed for losing, but not this time. Now she was _pissed_. He moved away and offered his hand to help her, but she ignored it, pulling herself up on her own.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” He asked, planting his hands in his hips like he always did when he was irritated and/or confused.

“Nothing wrong, I’m just not lucky today.”

He exhaled impatiently. “You should know by now that I’m not stupid. You’re clearly exhausted. What happened?”

“I’m not exhausted, I just woke up a bit early, I told you. I needed some time to warm up. That’s all.”

“That’s the lie I heard before, so I’m asking for the truth now. Did something happen to you last night? Because it looks like you didn’t get any sleep at all.”

Skye sighed and denied him a straight answer again. “It doesn’t matter! I’m fine. Can we continue now?”

“Are you sure?” He asked and quickly regretted that decision.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She retorted in such an annoyed tone that he immediately knew he shouldn’t argue with her right now.

“I mean, maybe we should stop for now.” Too late to back off. “Go get some sleep, and we can continue in the afternoon.”

“Stop?!” Her tone indicated how much anger he had unleashed. “If you want to train with someone more qualified than me, suit yourself. I’m not stopping so soon.”

She turned around and marched her way to the punching bag.

“Where did that come from?” He demanded. “I never had a problem with our training!”

“Then why are you taking it easy on me? Is it because I’m an agent now? If you don’t want to train with me anymore because I’m too easily defeated, I’m okay with that. Really.”

“What the hell, Skye? I’m taking it easy on you because you’re half-asleep! Are you alright?” Her attempt to make it sound like she didn’t care was so pathetic it didn’t even manage to make him mad. He was just worried. Whatever was going on, she really didn’t want to tell him, and that’s what annoyed him the most.

“Damn, Ward, I’m fine!”

She decided it wasn’t worth it staying there and arguing with him, so she quickly grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off her forehead and stomped away. Still, she could hear the last thing he said: “I know you’re lying!”

That didn’t stop her. No matter how hard she tried, he always knew.

* * *

He was sure she wouldn’t be asleep, but he didn’t expect to find her in the living area—more specifically, by the bar—nor drunk, let alone wearing a blue T-shirt with Captain America’s shield on it. His initial plan was to walk past her on the way to his bunk, but he changed his mind after seeing the bottle she was holding as she refilled her empty glass. He needed to intervene.

At first, she didn’t notice him when he silently walked toward her, but when she did, her reaction was as unexpected as everything she’d done that day.

“Oh, thank god you’re here!” She smiled widely at him, although the guilt was clear in her eyes. “I wanted to speak with you.”

“Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have avoided me all day.”

She didn’t seem to have anything to answer immediately, taking her time to think. He took a seat next to her by the bar and stole the glass from her hands, placing it and the bottle in the other end of the bar where she couldn’t reach them. She simply sighed dramatically at him, but didn’t complain. He was so predictable.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh, that!” She said as if he’d reminded her of something she had completely forgotten in a period of seconds. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I’m so sorry, Ward. I was such a bitch with you this morning… for nothing. And I lied. Twice, I think.”

The thought of making fun of her T-shirt escaped his mind as instantly as it had appeared. “Okay, I already know you didn’t just decide to start the day sooner,” he mocked the poor lie she’d given him earlier.

She wrinkled her nose like they were in a quiz and he’d given a very wrong answer. “I lied about that too. I didn’t want to tell you…” She hesitated.

“Whatever it is, you know you can be honest with me.”

She was drunk, but not the _oh-my-god-I-can’t-walk_ drunk (not yet); more like the _oh-my-god-why-am-I-so-sincere_ type of drunk. Long ago, Ward had found out that alcohol was quite effective at destroying the filters that prevented everything she was thinking from slipping out of her mouth.

“I haven’t been sleeping much,” she confessed, letting out a heavy breath. Somehow he knew he was the first one she told about that, and she sounded like it was great to finally tell someone. “Actually, that’s a euphemism. I haven’t been sleeping, period. Yesterday wasn’t the first time. I’ve been spending pretty much the entire night awake since… Remember what we were talking about last Friday?”

Not sure if she just wanted him to bring up the topic or if she really didn’t remember, he searched his mind for the memory of that conversation, and didn’t take long to find it. “We weren’t exactly talking, I was lecturing you about the responsibilities of being a SHIELD agent and you were, well, ignoring me.” The obvious realization didn’t take long to kick in either. “Wait, you haven’t slept properly since last Friday? That’s five nights, Skye!”

“First of all, I wasn’t ignoring you. I never am,” she guaranteed as a matter of fact. “I didn’t say anything because I was too busy overthinking like hell everything you said.” He didn’t say a word, waiting for her to comment on the second part of what he’d said. “And I know very well how many nights it is, thank you.”

“So why? Nightmares?” He tried.

“Nah, I haven’t been able to keep my eyes closed for long enough to produce nightmares.” That wasn’t as good as an answer as he deserved. After all, he’d put up with her ridiculous breakdown during the training session, and he wasn’t mad at her. For that, the least she owed him was the truth in its entirety.  “I don’t know, man. I can’t turn off my mind. When I lie in bed I’m agitated as if I’ve consumed an entire Starbucks, and I can’t make myself calm down and fall asleep.” She looked down as if she was embarrassed. “It got worse with the agent thing yesterday. I literally didn’t sleep at all. I’m so tired, I must be about to black out like a cell phone with low battery.”

He suddenly felt so stupid for not having noticed her sleeplessness. That explained the horrible mood she had been in the last few days, but he’d figured she was just stressed out over the whole “becoming an agent” process. To be fair, she’d done a pretty good job at hiding how tired she was, until this morning. And that would explain the unusual amount of times he’d seen her drinking coffee, which makes him even more idiotic for not putting two and two together.

“Goddamn it, Skye, you should’ve told me that days ago,” he complained. “I-“

“Shhh, I’m not finished yet,” she interrupted him, rubbing her eyes. It was getting harder to keep them open. “That was only the first lie.”

“Let me guess what the second one was.” He cleared his throat and she already knew what was coming. In the worst imitation of her voice ever (and maybe too many hand motions), he said: “You can stop training with me if you want! I’m okay with that!” When she thought he was finally done, he added the finale: “Suit yourself!” She rolled her eyes at him. “Correct?”

“The guess was okay but you need to work on those imitations. Or just stop doing them. At all.” She laughed in an attempt to lighten up the mood, but he maintained his apathetic expression. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

“I do.” He truly did. It was amazing how she could lie perfectly during missions and, at the same time, be such a poor liar when it came to him. “What I _don’t_ know is why you said that.”

She could just say she had been too tired to think about what was coming of her mouth, but she really didn’t feel like lying again. Also, the alcohol wouldn’t let her. “I think I’m a bit paranoid over being a field agent,” she admitted. “I don’t- I just don’t want to be a disappointment. Mostly because SHIELD won’t hesitate to kick me out if I mess up.”

“You mean, _Victoria Hand_ won’t hesitate,” he said, given that Skye had unbelievably managed to upset the superior officer every single time they’d encountered in the past 18 months. “Coulson would maybe think about it,” he tried to joke, but she didn’t laugh—Ward was only funny when he was _not_ trying to be. His rare attempts always failed miserably.

“I’m serious, Grant,” she said exasperatedly, making Ward realize how much thought she’d given to the possibility of being kicked out. He’d never taken Skye for the paranoid type, due to her always confident behavior, so that confession was definitely shocking. “I want to be a good agent, but I can’t do that if I don’t sleep, and I can’t sleep exactly because of that. I also might be going insane.”

He didn’t know how to react. Her confession had taken him by surprise, which forced him to improvise a way to comfort her.

“Look, you have to stop thinking that much about your responsibilities,” he said and immediately regretted it.

“Whoa, plot twist!” She chuckled. That sentence was a recurring thing, whenever he said something minimally shocking, and she knew he _hated_ it.

“I mean, always be aware of them, but you don’t have to worry about it to the point of not being able to sleep,” he corrected himself. “If we didn’t think you could be a good agent, Skye, you’d have been kicked out long ago.”

“Good to know,” she replied sarcastically.

“I mean it. You’ll do just fine.” He curved the sides of his lips into a small, almost invisible smile. “But you do need to sleep first.”

“Yeah, I know…” She blinked multiple times, almost unable to delay the moment in which her eyes would eventually close against her will. “At this point, sleeping is the hardest part.”

Giving up, she left her seat, being careful not to trip and fall to the ground, and slowly walked to her bunk. Nonetheless, he followed her footsteps.

It took her longer than it should have to notice he was behind her, but when she did, an idea filled her mind. So, instead of heading a few more steps forward in order to enter her bunk, she stopped in front of Ward’s. It was a stupid idea, but she was mildly drunk and too tired to ignore anything that could possibly help her get at least some hours of sleep.

When she slid the door open, she heard Ward and knew he was smirking while he said, “Skye, this is _my_ bunk.”

“Yeah… I know,” she repeated, lower than before. Turning to face him, she said, “Can I ask you a favor?”

He stared at her in disbelief for a second, and then it hit him. Once again, she’d managed to surprise him—it was a gift, honestly.

“Are you seriously asking to-“ He started, but cut himself halfway through the sentence. He couldn’t do that. Not when she was desperately tired to the point of asking him to share his bunk for a night. In addition, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep knowing she’d be awake in the bunk next to his, staring at the ceiling. “Alright,” he said, and she rewarded him with a relieved smile he hadn’t seen in quite a long time.

He was the first one to occupy the ridiculously small bed, and as soon as she laid beside him with her back to his chest, her brain started screaming that she had just had the worst idea ever. She was utterly, embarrassingly aware of _everything_. Chills crept up her spine as their legs touched, and she cursed herself for being in pajama shorts instead of sweatpants like he was. Every single muscle in her body tensed, and she shrunk her arms and legs as much as possible when he pulled the blanket over both of them.

She couldn’t even close her eyes, and Ward didn’t seem all that relaxed either. They were secretly avoiding letting their bodies touch, which was an impossible task considering the size of the bed. Ward was already too big for it, let alone when there was someone else with him.

Skye wondered if the clock placed beside Ward’s bed was somehow broken, since the time didn’t seem to pass and it was driving her crazy. At some point, she lost hope of sleeping that night. No matter how tired she was, her brain was way more active than necessary. She had already gotten used to spending the nights awake, but trying to remain perfectly still in the middle of the night sharing a bed with Ward was a whole different thing. Once he’d fallen asleep, he’d started unconsciously sliding closer to her, which didn’t make it any easier.

Around 2AM, she considered leaving his bunk and trying to sleep in her own, but he was a light sleeper so she’d certainly wake him up and it would be even more embarrassing to explain that his presence was making her _more_ agitated instead of helping in any way.

Not knowing what to do, she tried to take her brain out of whatever she was thinking about, and it took her a couple of hours, but the sleeplessness from five nights of insomnia eventually hit her.

The last time she checked the clock that night, the glowing red numbers said it was 2:19AM, and then she slept like a baby. It turned out that, when she wasn’t overthinking it, Grant Ward’s warmth, ironically, made it pretty comfortable to share a bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is a two-part story and I will post the second chapter tomorrow :)


	2. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second and last chapter of this short story. Enjoy!

Getting out of that tiny bed without waking Skye up was supposed to be a challenge, but she’d always been a heavy sleeper, so he managed that quite easily. He didn’t waste any time considering the possibility of waking her up or even setting an alarm; not after she’d silently let him throw her to the ground repeatedly and still refused to tell him the truth only to prove she would be a good agent; not after she’d spent five nights awake because of what he’d said to her last Friday. He felt a bit guilty. And to think he’d accused her of ignoring everything… The best he could do after being a clueless moron for the past five days was allowing her to oversleep in his own bed.

When she _did_ wake up, it was like she was finally a hundred percent awake after so many wasted nights, but she was also slightly hungover, causing her an annoying headache. Added to that, the last time she’d eaten had been hours before she’d settled at the bar last night, so she felt weak and in desperate need of nutrients.

It took Skye about three seconds to remember every single thing she’d done last night and she almost ripped her hair out when burying her head in her hands. Waking up in Ward’s bunk should’ve been enough to prove something, but she simply couldn’t believe she’d actually _asked_ him to sleep with her.

It could’ve been worse, though—that’s what she told herself. She mentally thanked him for stopping her from drinking more. Anyway, she still felt like her entire face was about to combust.

Turning around to slip out of the bed, Skye noticed she was wearing her Captain America T-shirt as pajamas and literally face-palmed. Another awful, clothing-related detail she noticed in the scenery: the clock next to the bed was covered by the sweatpants and white T-shirt Ward had been wearing last night. The thought of him possibly being about to return from his morning shower made her choke on a dozen of cursing words, but the one she spit out before slapping her own mouth in disbelief was, “fuck!”.

She urgently elbowed the door open and stumbled out of his bunk, not knowing exactly where she was heading to, but anywhere was fine as long she was out of there. Another bad idea (guess she was having a bunch of those lately), she found out when she spotted Ward walking through the living area.

Changing her path ridiculously late after staring him dead in the eye with the embarrassment crystal clear in her expression, she quickly paced until she entered her own bunk and then slammed the door behind her like a 12-year-old hiding from her crush. Absolutely pathetic, but she wouldn’t be able to compose herself for long enough to look him in the eyes without blushing until her cheeks burned.

Walking in circles—more like walking back and forth in a line, due to the lack of space not occupied by the bed—, she waited for the inevitable. Less than a minute later, she heard a couple of light knocks on her door and shrieked.

During the pause between hearing the noise and opening the door, she considered remaining silent until he gave up and went away.

“Good morning, weirdo,” he said before she could finish sliding the door completely open.

He looked fresh and cute in dark blue sports pants and one of his hundreds of identical white T-shirts. Unable to form a sentence that could work as an answer, and aware that slightly punching him in the shoulder, saying “what up” and running away would only make it worse, she only stared at his feet and entangled her fingers in her messed up hair.

“I’m hungry,” she blurted out. “Guess I should, uh, get some breakfast now.”

She tried moving past him to get out of the bunk, but stopped once she saw the look on his face. He was about to laugh and she didn’t know the reason. “Breakfast? You sure?” He pointed at the analog clock she had next to her bed and waited while she took longer than usual to read it.

She exhaled loudly in disbelief. “Holy crap!” It was around 2PM already.

His smirk widened a bit. “We’re landing in two hours. Budapest. Mission briefing in ten.” His eyes moved a bit lower. “You might want to change your clothes, despite how hilarious would it be if you showed up in the control room in that T-shirt.”

“Very funny, Agent Ward,” she replied. “For your information, this was a gift from Jemma on my last birthday. She’s such a fangirl, what can I do?”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he said sarcastically.

“So, what’s this mission about?” She was desperate to change the subject before it could get any _more_ awkward.

“If I knew, we wouldn’t need to be at the briefing.”

Damn. Wasn’t she the receiving end of all that unusual sarcasm, she’d have been a pleased viewer during this rare demonstration that he could use his sense of humor.

“See you in ten,” he said, preparing to walk away.

He didn’t expect to have his arm grasped by her hesitating hand as she stopped him. “No, wait-“

It had slipped out of her mouth before she could plan what to say next. She needed to say something, though. “I just wanted to, um, thank you. So, yeah, thanks…” Skye had always had her way with words, therefore stuttering like this made her feel entirely foolish. “Also, I may have kicked you. A lot. And I’m very sorry about that.”

She had, in fact, kicked him a couple of times, but nothing really disturbing, so he preferred not to confirm nor deny it. “You’re welcome.”

* * *

“So, how did the mission go?”

“I _think_ we did well.”

Jemma held Skye’s wrist with one of her hands and used the fingertips of the other one to apply pressure to different parts of her forearm. “I told you, it’s nothing-“ Skye’s complaint was cut when the biochemist touched a certain place that made her whine in pain.

“It doesn’t appear to be nothing,” Jemma made her point.

Skye had just returned from her “first” mission with Ward, May and Coulson—whilst going in a mission as a consultant had felt like hanging out with the cool kids, as an agent it was like actually being a part of the cool kids, except way more dangerous and secretive. The mission was level 7, and she was practically a newborn with her level 1 clearance, therefore the cool kids had told her almost nothing. She did only what she was supposed to and heard their talk during the operation through her earpiece, but what difference did it make since they used codenames for everything involved?! The result was, she didn’t know if the mission had been completely successful.

“Lucky for you, it’s just a mild wrist sprain,” Jemma finally announced, forcing Skye to resurface after losing herself in thoughts. “May I ask you something?”

“Remember what we talked about _not_ asking for my permission before asking me a question?” Skye reprimanded. “Of course you may ask me something!”

Jemma squinted. “Right. So, what happened to you yesterday? You disappeared all morning and then showed up at the briefing as if out of thin air! Agent Ward said you weren’t feeling well, but I checked your bunk and it was empty.”

Skye chuckled. Not understanding something always made Jemma annoyed, and Skye could see she had been dying to ask her that, but they hadn’t been together for more than five minutes since that mission briefing. She looked above Jemma’s shoulder to check if Fitz really wasn’t there in the lab and confessed, “That’s because I was in his bunk.”

Jemma’s reaction was _priceless_. Her chin dropped and she glared at Skye like the new agent had just confessed a felony. “Did you two-“ Jemma started and then covered her own mouth with her hands, taking them out a few seconds later, still quite shocked, but also a bit… content? Perhaps she was just glad for being the only one who spotted Ward’s lie about Skye being sick. “Bloody hell. I knew he was hiding something!”

“No, calm down, that’s not-“

“Don’t worry, Skye,” Jemma interrupted sympathetically with a grin on her face, clearly amused like she had just figured out everything. Unbelievably, she was using that cute voice she used whenever Fitz was afraid of something. “I won’t tell anyone. You know you can always trust me to keep your secrets, so tell me the whole truth, how-“

“That’s what I’m trying to do, Sherlock Holmes,” Skye joked, trying not to laugh at the irony behind what Jemma had just stated, considering how terrible of a liar she was. “I didn’t _sleep_ with Ward. We just… slept together. Get it?”

“Actually, I don’t,” Jemma responded, bemused. “Do you mind making yourself more specific?”

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping… Last night I kind of tried to drink away my problems, and Ward caught me, so we talked and… Long story short, stupid-and-drunk me asked to sleep _with_ him. Ridiculous, I know. We _just_ slept, nothing more than sleeping in the most literal sense of that word.”

Jemma stared at her in pure disbelief for a second, and then burst out in laughter. “Also,” Skye added, “I was wearing that Captain America T-shirt you gave me.”

Jemma laughed even harder. “Is there a possibility of this story getting better?”

“Oh, believe me,” Skye begun, but stopped when her friend’s smile faded away in a heartbeat, looking at something behind her.

Turning around to see what caught Jemma’s attention, however fairly certain that her guess—based on the look in the biochemist’s face—would be confirmed, Skye watched as Ward walked into the lab. He was still in his dirty combat uniform, and his eyesight was locked on her entire figure before moving on to her hand specifically.

“Everything alright?” He asked nonchalantly, stopping next to the chair she was sitting on.

Skye pretended she wasn’t noticing Jemma discreetly moving away with a childish smirk on her face and answered, “I’m fine.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Last time I got that as an answer, you weren’t.”

“Fair point, but now I really am fine besides this, thank you,” she raised her sprained wrist, trying to contain a smile. A year and a half later, the fact that he was constantly worried about everyone in the team still hit her when she wasn’t expecting. In an awful British accent, she added, “Just a mild wrist sprain!” And then laughed at herself. “Got anything below Level 7 clearance to tell me?”

For quite some time now, Skye had been putting effort into an attempt to sound less like an annoyed-teenager when the subject was the clearance levels. As much as it was disappointing not being cleared to know lots of things, she knew she had to respect the system, and Coulson would always do his best to inform the team everything he could. So, instead of “got anything below level 7 to tell me since I put myself in the line of fire for something I don’t even get to know what is and therefore deserve to get some goddamn answers about that”, she effectively tried to sound more like, got anything below level 7 to tell me? Or don’t, whatever.” Even if it wasn’t fully honest.

“Excuse me,” Jemma interrupted, making her way out of the lab rather quickly. “I will find you a wrist splint and some ice for that,” she said, pointing at Skye’s hand before storming out.

“Actually, I do,” he surprised Skye, who was definitely expecting an answer like “nope, sorry.”

“Are you serious?” She jumped out of her seat (partially because staring him from him below made her feel tiny). Her eyes glowed, but not sure if the information he was about to give would be good or bad to hear. God, she hoped it was good.

“The mission was a success, Skye,” he said, noticing how insanely anxious she was, and excited to inform her that her first mission hadn’t been a complete fiasco. One small detail had gone wrong, but a) she didn’t have the clearance to know these details, b) she’d certainly think it had been her fault, and c) it really wasn’t that big of a deal.

“W-what?” A bright smile spread across her face. “What do you mean?”

“Remember what you heard through the comms before you and Coulson busted the compound?”

She did, in fact, remember perfectly what she heard. Right before Coulson gave her the orders, she’d heard Ward’s voice in her earpiece, but it hadn’t made much sense to her back then. “Yeah. ‘ST and SM are secure. Ready for extraction’,” she repeated. “Were those, like, really important packages or what?”

“No, not packages.” His lips quirked upwards into a half-smile as he announced. “ST and SM stand for Sara Trevino, 6-year-old, and Sam McCarty, 9-year-old.”

She blinked, once, twice, three times while her chin dropped to the ground as she realized what that meant. “Are you saying-“ Her voice faltered. “Sorry, will you tell me _exactly_ what the mission was about?”

He took a deep breath. “We took down an illegal lab that was experimenting with Chitauri substances found in-“

“Yeah, that’s the only part I was told about,” she interrupted gently, but impatiently. “How are two kids involved? Were they- Oh my god, were those psychos doing tests with Chitauri stuff in _children_?!”

Ward looked down and nodded before setting his eyes on her again. “Not for long before we stopped them. The kids were flown to the Hub and will be examined and sent back to their homes.”

Skye ran her good hand through her hair, processing what he had just informed her. “But what about-“

“Classified,” he said before she could ask any more questions. “This is all I’m allowed to tell you, Skye. Sorry. But you _did_ help save two abducted children.”

Hearing that last sentence, Skye couldn’t help but giggle. Helping save children? She could totally get used to how amazing that felt.

Ward was smiling too. A successful mission like this was exactly what Skye needed to restore her faith in herself; plus, the last time he’d seen her so happy had been a long time ago, and he really enjoyed that.

Seeing his face lit up with that adorable smile, Skye stopped looking at him straight away. That goddamn smile triggered things she’d rather have left buried away as long as possible—partly because being attracted to her supervising officer (and now fellow SHIELD agent) had tiny chances of ending well, partly due to the lack of signs that he ever felt the same way. Ignoring whatever she felt was just easier than confronting it.

It was different now, though. Who knew spending a night sharing a single bed would change things so quickly?! Turned out it kind of did. Trying not to look back up in his eyes, Skye realized she’d never even hugged him. They had saved each other’s lives more than once, but had never really hugged, and she wanted to. That’s not weird at all, right? Wanting to know how was it like to be embraced by his firm arms? Friends hug, fellow agents hug. Hell, it’s normal.

So she quit thinking about it and jumped forwards, throwing her arms around his neck. It took him a few seconds to react properly after being caught by surprise once again by her, but when he did wrap his arms around her waist, it felt _so_ good. Her sprained wrist hurt a little due to the sudden movement, and she couldn’t care less. Damn, he was so much taller than her and everyone else in the team, and she felt even smaller being held by him like that, but the height difference made it oddly more comfortable. She fit into his arms like their bodies were two puzzle pieces, her face buried in his chest, his chin resting on her shoulder, allowing themselves to enjoy the warmth that spread through their bodies. When he softly ran his hand through her hair and caressed her back, suddenly she wished they had spent the entire night like that two days ago. (Such a waste.)

Eventually, they separated, though neither of them wanted to—first because it would be slightly awkward after, and second… Well, just because staying like that would be nice, really. But Skye didn’t let go so fast. Instead, she slowly raised her good hand to his face, cupping his cheek and praying he wouldn’t notice that she was lightly shaking. She had no idea of what was happening at all.

She moved gradually, giving him time to back away if that was what he wanted, although she secretly hoped _so_ much it wasn’t. And she had no idea he was quietly expecting her to make a move, because for some reason he didn’t want to pass the wrong impression, he didn’t want to ruin everything before it even happened, or maybe he was just too frozen to be the first to show what he wanted.

But she did. They could only stare into each other’s eyes for so long; Skye carefully put her good hand in his shoulder and stood on her tiptoes in order to reduce their height difference before pulling him close enough to press a tender kiss on his lips. And then the whole “take it slow” thing was over. His hands moved along her body while hers went from his face and shoulder to the back of his neck and entangled themselves in his soft hair. She couldn’t help but curve the corners of her lips into a smile when the touch of her thumb in that ticklish spot behind his ear sent a quiver down his spine. She may or may not have touched that spot on purpose.

When their lips separated, they still kept their foreheads against each other’s until Skye opened her eyes and saw the look of both bewilderment and delight in his face. He seemed so surprised she literally started giggling.

“Remember what you told me about trying to stop overthinking?” She asked, because the temptation of being sarcastic instead of serious was crushing her. “Took the advice. Thanks, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm just a sucker for happy endings. :)  
> Special thanks to my friend Be (aka lovegkp on Twitter aka that friend that still hasn't gotten an account here) for some ideas and a lot of motivation. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


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